The big news first – we had the great joy to welcome into the world, and into our family a beautiful wee girl – Jemima – born at 15:29 on 3rd July. She weighed in at 6 lbs 2 oz and measured 20”. We thank the Lord for His goodness and grace. All went well through the labour and since. Both Janelle and Jemima are doing well, and we are thankful that Jemima sleeps well at night.
Well, what about the boys? Of course they are over the moon, thrilled and besotted. They all enjoy having a wee sister, and the younger three particularly love to hold and rock her.
We concluded making our Sunday School videos at the end of June, are taking a break, but the boys are keen to get back into it come August. With the school work going to be affected by Coronavirus for months to come, I’d like to make the next series with schools in mind. Prayers valued. If you didn’t see the previous series, they are all listed on my website: www.forwardinhope.com/video along with other video recordings we’ve made over the past months.
Since the beginning of July we have gradually been easing back into open air and outdoor tract work. We have carried out two open airs in Birmingham City Centre and now been back down in Small Heath twice as well, plus a day spent in Sparkbrook. Next week would have been our Reaching Muslims outreach, though cancelled as you’d expect. However, I am going to personally be focusing on the Muslim work over the next few weeks. One reason is that within the Muslim community there has been some contention regarding the Qur’an.
In the majority of conversations we would have with Muslims, mention would inevitably be made concerning their perception that the Bible has been corrupted and changed, while the Qur’an remains unchanged from the time of Muhammad, accurate to the letter, indeed to the dot. This viewpoint is ludicrous, and though the common Muslim’s faith is, in ignorance, strengthened by it, the scholars and academics have come to a point where they can no longer hold this view, so overwhelming is the manuscript evidence to the contrary. And so, six weeks ago, a video was posted on YouTube of a Muslim scholar admitting publicly for the first time that there are many variants in the manuscripts and in the various transmissions of the text of the Qur’an.
As the light of truth shines in this small area of academic research, its rays will slowly begin to reach down to the common Muslim on street, and thus there is an opportunity to use this as a means of sowing seeds of doubt in the minds of those so blinded by Islam, to the end that they might be more open to hearing the Gospel or reading the Bible, though it will take time. A conversation yesterday is a case in point. An African man, who grew up in a Christian environment and subsequently converted to Islam, had heard of what this aforementioned scholar had said, but simply dismissed it sticking to the old line. As we continued to set evidence before him, he observed that we were trying to get him to doubt the Qur’an, and we agreed with his observation. His answer was that he would never doubt it. He had made up his mind and nothing would shake it. With this man, it was because his mind was closed to the Gospel that we pursued this more polemical approach, but it is not the method we use with all.
A Pakistani man in Small Heath, well educated, engaged with us regarding the Trinity. With this man, we took more of an apologetic approach, defending Christ from the Scriptures. This is by far the most common approach we take, for the Muslims primary tactic is to use carefully selected verses from the Bible to attack the Deity of Christ. This man took me to Mark 12v28-29 which concludes with the Lord quoting Deuteronomy 6: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord’. “There you go”, he says, “Jesus preached Islam”. Of course, the riposte to whatever verse is thrown at us, is always the same – context, context and context! So we reminded him that Jesus Christ was in v29 answering a specific question regarding the law; that this quotation when examined in the Hebrew in no way undermines the doctrine of the trinity; and would have liked to have gone on to remind him that the Lord in v36 actually speaks directly to the subject of His Deity by quoting Psalm 110. Unfortunately, he had a call from his wife, and had to go on up the road.
To conclude this overview of methods used, let me tell you of one further man I spoke to yesterday. Another Pakistani, this man was elderly, and though his English was pretty good, it was clear that simplicity was the key. This man just loved to tell the Qur’anic stories, the majority of which have ties to the Bible of not from the Bible, and so I let him talk, and then would chime in with the crucial missing piece that ties it back to the Gospel. In this you have to ignore some of the false details because its not possible to correct everything, I wanted to keep coming back repeatedly to Christ and Him crucified. He talked about the virgin birth, and I reminded him that the one born was born to die and rise again – a living Saviour. He then went off on the story of Moses and the deliverance from Egypt, the magicians and the Red Sea, which gave me opportunity to tell him of the crucial part of the lamb, the blood and the angel of death passing over. I emphasised to him that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, and this held true for all the OT saints: Adam, Noah … at which point off he went into the Qur’anic story of Noah. He finished by marvelling that after Noah had preached for hundreds of years, the people would not believe and come into the ark. What a wonderful opportunity to show him how the ark is a picture of Christ, and to marvel how that as we walk up and down the street talking to Muslims and calling them to salvation in Christ, they too will not believe. At this point I felt that was enough for the conversation and we bade each other a good day and departed.
In other news, Jdh’s arm has healed well. He is now out of plaster and getting more and more movement in his elbow week upon week. He still is not able to stretch it out fully but was able last weekend to cycle about 8 miles on his bike. So, the break is not hindering him in any way. He will still have to go back in about 6 months time to have the screw taken out.
Birmingham - A City in Need of Christ 